Creativity and Self-Exploration in Projective Drawings of Abused Women: Evaluating the Inside Me–Outside Me Workshop

Abstract

This study evaluated a creative workshop where college students (N = 300) devised self-expressive products to explore their inner and outer worlds. Participants devised products with drawing and writing components to examine their relationships with negative life events, self-concepts, and worldviews. Participants then evaluated the workshop. Artists and psychologists rated products for effort, creativity, and self-exploration. Participants evaluated the workshop as valuable (e.g., helped them feel mentally flexible, gave them freedom to express inner feelings). Past stressful life events correlated with positive evaluations of the workshop and self-exploration shown in products. Past visual art experience, personality (openness), and verbal ability predicted the creativity of products, whereas gender and life events interacted to predict self-exploration. A key finding of this study was that women who had experienced physical, sexual, or emotional abuse devised the most self-exploratory products and most strongly evaluated the activity as valuable.

Keywords:

• self-expression
• creativity
• drawing
• abuse
• women
• trauma
• counseling

Acknowledgments

For their assistance as raters, the authors are grateful to Diana Baumbach, Patrick Casey, Danielle Malmquist, Yesenia Ortiz, Shelby Shadwell, and Alex Wesseln.